


All Dragons are Princes

by OverMyFreckledBody



Series: dragons i guess [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Dragon Shiro (Voltron), Knight Lance (Voltron), M/M, Pre-Relationship, Quests, Secret Identity, Tumblr Prompt, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 04:45:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16885857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverMyFreckledBody/pseuds/OverMyFreckledBody
Summary: Lance is on a quest to find the missing squire Keith, who disappeared too long ago on the search for his mentor, Shiro. Now out of the bounds of the crown, Lance happens upon some more... unsavory people.One of them is a little more savory than the rest. After all, he's the one who's willing to lead Lance to the last known place Keith was heading to - a dragon's den.





	All Dragons are Princes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WashiPuppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WashiPuppy/gifts).



> _[washipuppy](https://tmblr.co/mbQk9mmNt26pCBi3qV2_6mw) said: _
> 
> _How about one of my favourite Rainer Maria Rilke quotes?_  
>  “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."  
> Or if that don’t tickle your thought pickle, the poem "Go to the limits of your longing” (https://onbeing.org/blog/go-limits-longing/)
> 
> and i loved the prompt, but my brain focused on dragons and went from there. so you have more a d&d campaign than heartfelt love/angst, always gonna apologize for that one.  
> ONE DAY I WILL WRITE SOMETHING WITH THIS ACTUAL PROMPT
> 
> so, another move from tumblr, but this one is gonna be part of a series. that said, it was [originally posted march 19th, 2018](http://cryingovershance.tumblr.com/post/172025775789/all-dragons-are-princes)

As hard as this would be to believe to someone who spent a lot of time around him, Lance really was content to spend most of the trip in silence. He was. He’d be perfectly fine if the only words spoken were ones similar to, “’Careful of that twig there,” and, “Do we need to stop in this town for rations?”

 

He had no need to seek out conversation with a stranger, especially one who never showed his face (or even gave up a name), and especially not one who was actively there for his company. No, they were invested in the same destination, but for differing reasons, and Lance didn’t need to make any more friends with someone he likely wouldn’t see again.

 

But.

 

But the thing is, if this man wanted conversation, wanted to initiate it all on his own, he wouldn’t mind replying, is all. For example, as they’re making their way up a slightly steeper incline, and the man’s dark glove catches his elbow right before he falls, and his way of acknowledging Lance’s thanks is instead the question, “What are you after, heading straight into a dragon den?”

 

Well, it’d be awfully rude not to answer a question, especially when the man who’d asked had just saved him from possibly careening back down the mountain. (Or, really, more likely, just slipping and taking a rock or two to the face, at most.)

 

Lance’s breath hitches tightly, and he brushes himself off, gathering his thoughts as he finds his footing again, and takes his time before answering. He shifts both his bow and pack over his shoulder and casts a glance at the man at his side. He strangely doesn’t stick out in the forest around them, despite being head to toe in black, complete with even a hood that hides all but the glints of his eyes. Even up close, that’s all that Lance can make out. 

 

Lance knows that his crest is quite visibly and the man has definitely seen it, Lance has caught his eyes on it a couple times, wandering from one patch to the next, his shoulder to his heart to his hip. It should be quite recognizable, but maybe this far out… Maybe the people out here are just so… out of influence, to say the least. 

 

“Queen Allura’s asked a quest of me,” Lance tells him, and his eyebrows furrow when he notices the man nod politely, to show he’s listening, but nothing more. Surely mentioning her Highness’ title would perhaps ring a bell, but there is no other change in the man’s outer body language from what Lance can tell. He continues on anyway, careful to not his words hesitate with his growing skepticism, “I’m to find a missing squire who went this way.”

 

If Lance didn’t know better, he’d think it a fruitless case, being that the dumbass probably found himself lost in these very woods. Well, he does think it fruitless, just a tad, but not because of unskilled navigational skills. He thinks the man her Highness is looking for simply doesn’t want to be found.

 

After all, if a man’s gone that long, something has surely happened to him. 

 

The man tilts his head, listening with a different kind of interest. Despite the fact that they continue to trek on, Lance pauses at it, calculating. He does a sweep over the man’s form, but like before, he finds nothing new of help. Just black on black, cloth on cloth, billowy and free, yet just restraining enough to keep his identity a mystery. It sets Lance’s hairs on edge, but… he’s not quite sure it’s fear.

 

And he doesn’t have time to figure just what it really is. 

 

“Who is this man you’re looking for?” The hooded man asks, and when Lance doesn’t reply immediately, his head dips, as if acknowledging his wariness – the man is quite… unnaturally perceptive. Lance would imagine that one would have to be, to survive out here, where the people are shadier, have to get by differently. Still… There’s a sharper tint to it that clicks something in the back of his head he hasn’t quite figured out yet. 

 

The man reaches up under his hood, turning away, and does something that briefly ruffles his hood, before looking back at Lance again. That move was uncharacteristically… nervous of him, bizarrely more  _human_  than the rest of his actions. “I just ask because,” he stops, but it’s so short of a pause that it almost doesn’t even exist, though his words pick up speed just a touch after this pause. “We don’t get a lot of people out here. Anyone new is… noticeable. I might be able to help.”

 

Help further, anyway. It’s… odd, that this man wants to help Lance so much, help him to this supposedly dangerous dragon home, help him find this missing man he knows nothing of, when he apparently feels no obligation to the crown. It’s also unusual how only now, only after attempting to dig into Lance’s business in the area, has caused him to break his demeanor of before. 

 

Still, Lance tells him, because he might as well try, and while it hasn’t yet gotten around the kingdom (though if the people deem the gossip important enough, it surely will soon enough), this place is isolated it doesn’t even matter. And while Lance isn’t sure of this man, he knows this information isn’t likely to be used against him. “A squire who never became a knight, named Keith. Her Highness has business with him and since he went missing a while back, looking for someone as well, and never came back, it is now  _my_  business to find him.”

 

With this new nugget of information given to the man, something between them builds with tension, and Lance watches out of the corner of his eye as he forcefully relaxes his shoulders, where they had hiked farther up his neck.

 

Curious…

 

“And this man, that this… Keith was looking for?”

 

And Lance says, now entirely because he wants to see the man’s strange reaction, “A knight, his mentor, Sir Shiro.”

 

Though he doesn’t actually trip, the man does lose his footing.  _Damning evidence_ , Lance thinks, keeping a tight control of his jaw to keep it from dropping, even as he feels his eyes widening. This man  _definitely_  knows something about both of the two. 

 

For the first time since Shiro himself was declared officially missing, Lance feels a flare of hope lighting up warming in his gut. Whoever this man is, or his part in it, he’s a sure sign that Lance is on the right path to getting what he’s looking for. 

**Author's Note:**

> man will i miss where i could just bombard my dumb tags in my tumblr posts. easier for everyone else to ignore that way, you know?


End file.
